Giving them the benefit of your wisdom translates as: Lecturing

Gently proposing an organized approach to spending time translates as: Lecturing

Suggesting they take a couple Advil translates as: Lecturing

Recommending a food group: Lecturing.
Not even speaking: Lecturing.
Breathing: Lecturing.

I am unbearable to live with. Probably so are you.

Rae

For two weeks (all the while keeping in constant contact with Jeff at Pinkberry) I waited to see who he would be when he came home. More argumentative? More mature? More grateful? (Kidding.) We drove home, I sent him upstairs with his suitcase, started dinner and went up to find that he’d taken a shower, cut his nails and was on his computer. In the middle of the room was his empty suitcase.

Watch what happens.

“Did you have a great time at camp?”
“Yeah I did. What did you do while I was gone?” he asked.
(Searched your room, ate your Easter candy… ) “Not much.”
But Oh My God, he’d asked what I did while he was gone. This was really encouraging. I kept going.
Where are your clothes?”
“In the laundry.”
He put his clothes in the laundry! I kept going.
“Is that where you plan to leave that suitcase?”
“No. I’ll put it away.”
He’s planning on putting his suitcase away! I kept going.
“Did you put your shoes downstairs?”
“No.”
“I see.”
“See what?”
“Well I see your shoes everywhere, that you’ve left your cut fingernails all over the desk and your towel on the floor.”
“Well, yeah but…”
“And you lost your pillowcase, right?
“I switched rooms and the maintenance guy…”
“Forget it. I’ll take care of everything. Go back to your game.” (Oooooh. Martyr-Mom. An exquisite role and I was born for it.) I picked up his towel, threw out the fingernails, put his suitcase away and feeling way too satisfied, shook my head at him and walked out.

***

When I was 16, my parents went on a vacation and left me in charge of my three younger sisters. I drove, cooked, did laundry, checked homework and slept with my boyfriend in my parents bed. (Oh give me a break, I was sixteen!) A few days later, my parents came home. My mother didn’t even take off her coat. She walked directly to the laundry room, pulled the lint trap out of the dryer (which I must tell you I didn’t even know existed) and scraped out a kitten sized wad of grey. “Look what you did,” she said, “you almost broke the dryer.” I remember feeling frustrated and angry. I remember I’d been really proud of myself for all the work I’d done and in one simple move it was gone.

***

Of course, that’s exactly what I’d just done to my son. And now I’m sure he’ll look back on this for years and resent me for not recognizing and celebrating his maturity. He had managed to grow up a little and I took it away from him. I had angered him on a deep and basic level.

Which occurs to me might be exactly how I begin the process of getting him the hell out of the house.

Rae.

“How much homework do you still have?”
“Have you put your clothes in the laundry?”
“Dear God, cut your nails. You look like a coke-dealer.”

The woman who watches over him while I’m at work is from El Salvador. As far as I’ve been able to gather, in El Salvador men are Gods. You just can’t do enough for them. You certainly don’t follow them around telling them what they haven’t done. You applaud what they have done. You bring them food and lay it discreetly in front of them as they watch TV. You don’t run the vacuum while they are sleeping. As you can imagine, this is not exactly the plan I have for my son.

So I gave him some chores. Nothing outrageous. Feed the dogs. Pick up the dog poop in the backyard. Take the garbage out.

The expression on his face as I listed these chores was what I imagine people look like when they are being buried alive. Stunned. Desperate. Panicked.

“When does this start?”
“Now.”
His hand flew to his face. He took a couple steps backward, turned and staggered toward his room. On the up side, it’s the first thing I haven’t had to repeat in six months.

On Monday, I informed the babysitter of Danny’s new jobs. I told her if it became necessary she could remind him of these and I went to work.

What a maroon.

For two, maybe three weeks I actually believed that my son was doing his chores. (But for the record, I also believe that someday I will get back into the jeans I still keep from when I was 20.)

I came home early on a Friday. Danny was home. Typical conversation… how was your day? What did you have for lunch? And then… have you fed the dogs yet? I glanced over to him. He looked sharply to the El Salvadorean babysitter who gave an almost imperceptible nod. He looked back to me. “Yes,” he said.

My heart sank. Clearly he was doing FREAKING NOTHING and she was totally enabling him. Then cleverly I asked him, “And do we need more dog food?” “Yes,” the sitter jumped in quickly. She’s smarter than he is. She knows if he looks to her again it’s all over. “We need more food,” she said.

“Boy, do we,” my son chimed in.

That was it. I read them the riot act. I explained to my son that if he wants the benefits of living in this house, he needs to participate in it. I explained furiously to the babysitter that it is not her job to decide HOW to raise the kid, it is her job to make sure that the kid is raised the way I’VE DECIDED. Did they understand this? Did they understand that it is DANNY’S job to take out the trash, feed the dogs and clean up the yard?

“Yes.”
“Yeah.”

I then made it clear that if my wishes were not respected, there would be no allowance, and that every time the sitter did one of Danny’s jobs, I would deduct $50.00 from her paycheck. Was everyone clear on this?

“Yes.”
“Yeah.”

“Good.”

“But Mom, what about the next three weeks while I’m at camp?”

Shit.
Shit, shit, shit.

It was now my turn to look over to the Queen of El Salvador. You know, the one I’d just completely reamed out for what now suddenly seemed like such a kind gesture… so generously doing all these jobs. I smiled. My eyes said, “Please. Help me. I’m working 12 hour days.” Her eyes said, “Fuck you.”

“Well,” I said, “for the next three weeks… Uh… I will be taking out the trash, feeding the dogs and cleaning up the yard.”

It appears everyone is satisfied with this arrangement.

Rae.

“Your lack of planning is not my emergency.”

I guess the author of that little piece of wisdom must have forgotten to add the caveat, “unless you’re someone’s mother,” because these days I seem to live by the (far lesser known but equally revered) saying;

“I have no plans and no life, so if you miss the bus and need a ride to school or forget your P.E. clothes (that I have washed and folded) and need me to drive back and get them in rush hour traffic or suddenly decide at 8:00pm you want go somewhere that scares me to death until midnight and then want to be picked up a block away so no one knows I exist… your wish is my command.

2 PM, Saturday: I have taken the dogs to the park, gone to the gym, made breakfast and lunch for Danny and done two loads of laundry. I’ve looked forward to this afternoon all week. Nothing else to do. Nothing. Read. Write a little. As a defensive measure, I ask my son what his plans are for the rest of the day. He says, no plans. (“Perfect.” I reply). I sit down at my desk to leisurely peruse the paper.

2:20 PM: “August might come over,” he yells down the stairs.
“Okay,” I yell back.

2:25 PM: “Harrison is coming too,” he calls
“Okay,” I call back.

2:40 PM: His door opens. “I’m hungry.”

I make a second lunch.

3:07 PM: Harrison can’t get a ride. Can we pick him up?
“Sure.”

So I get in the car and go pick up Harrison. I come back and open the book I’ve been reading. I feel a presence at the door.

“Can you take us to the mall?”
“What about August?”
“He wants to know if we can pick him up on the way there.”
I stare daggers at him. Surely he will feel some sense of shame. (Hahahahaha).

I pick up August. We get halfway to the mall when he realizes he has no money and forgot his phone. We drive back. His parents aren’t home (Why would they be?) I shove him through their dog door, he gets his stuff and we drive to the mall. It’s 5:30PM. We decide that they will eat dinner there and I will come back to get them at 9:00 PM. I come home. Feed the dogs again, light some candles, put some dinner in the oven and spend a half hour figuring out how to change our (“our,” what a joke) TV from the x-box configuration to HBO. I sit down in front of a real movie. Hot food. Hot movie.

Ding. Text message.

“Can you pick us up now?”

Oh, well that’s simple. I type into my phone…

“No.”

I turn the movie back on. I take a bite of salad. Ding.

“We’re bored.”

He’s going to have to do better than that.

“No.”

Several minutes go by. The movie’s getting good. Ding.

“But I’m cold.”

He’s cold. It’s Southern California in June. I don’t even respond.

Ding.

“August lost a shoe and Harrison thought he was giving a dollar to a homeless guy but he gave him a ten by mistake and tried to ask for it back but the guy got weird so we let him have it and we didn’t
have enough for dinner and we’re all still hungry.”

Ohmyf’inggod. Okay. Take a breath. These are other people’s children. It’s irresponsible to leave them at the mall hungry and half shoeless. I pause my movie, hit the wrong button on the remote, lose my connection to Netflix, text that I’m on my way and drive to our meeting place.

But no one’s there. Ten minutes, fifteen minutes. People are annoyed at where I’m parked. I move. I move again. I consider maiming myself to get a handicapped sticker. Finally I see them strolling over. They are laughing. They have Frappuccino’s. I hate them. August has lost his other shoe, but somehow acquired a top hat. We get home where the dogs have pulled my meal down from the counter, broken the plate and eaten the remote.

“Oh man, I think I just stepped in glass.”
“Can we have quesadillas?”
“Do we have speakers that will connect to Harrison’s phone?”
“Your dog just like threw up a battery in the living room.”
“I don’t like quesadillas. Can I have something else?”
“We’re going upstairs ’til dinner’s ready.”

I stand in the kitchen and begin to multi-task. (That’s what I call shredding cheese and crying at the same time.) Why? Why do I do this? Well, I guess it’s because I genuinely want him to have a good time. I want him to have friends and go places. But I also believe he should make plans ahead of time and understand that the world doesn’t revolve around his every whim. I look up. Danny is standing at the door.

“Mom, I I just wanted to say thanks for doing all the driving and everything today.”

Well there you go. THAT’S why I do this. I wipe away my tears and smile up at him. He’s not a selfish monster. He does appreciate all these things I do for him.

“But in the future, could you not talk when I have friends in the car?”

Rae.

So I walked into her office armed with a golden oldie of mine that I know I can complain about for the full 50 minutes and finish feeling really self-righteous. It’s called, “My Parents Didn’t Know What The Hell They Were Doing.” I sat down and warmed up with the “Father Was Never Home,” diatribe, segued artfully into the “They-Never-Told-Me-Anything-About-Sex” lament and was sliding comfortably into my rant on how no one ever helped me with my homework, how I was forced to babysit my younger siblings, never got a car, couldn’t leave the house and had to fold the entire family’s laundry when suddenly, it hit me.

My parents were geniuses.

Oh my God. There’s no denying it. They knew exactly what they were doing and in retrospect, it was brilliant. They had the upper hand, and they used it. When they said no, it was no. If you demanded an explanation, they laughed. Why should they explain? They were the parents, we were just teenagers.

I mean what would you give for even a week of raising your kids the way your parents did? Let’s consider the possibilities:

-You could hit them.

-No seat belts. If they argued with you in the car, you could tap the brakes and throw them into the dashboard to emphasize your point.

-Parenting wasn’t an industry. You just did it. If the kid got fucked up, people felt sorry for the parents.

-You could feed them crap. Even frozen crap. Two thirds of the food pyramid was crap.

-Bad moods were just “phases.” Not signs you should have seen coming long before they hacked into the County Records and officially declared you dead. (Real funny, Danny.)

-”Friends with benefits,” meant sucking up to an unpopular kid who had a pool.

-You didn’t have to confiscate 7 goddamned devices to keep them from communicating with each other.

-You could say, “Wait ’til your father gets home.” Not, “Wait ’til your father who’s living with my ex-best friend and raising her kids by her second husband gets home.”

-And if he didn’t come home, you could hit them.

Rae.